BRITAIN’S top university bosses were revealed yesterday to have received average pay rises of 5.9 per cent — more than five times the amount doled out to their academic staff members.

The pay award went to vice-chancellors of the top-tier Russell Group of universities and it brought their average salaries up to a bumper £342,200.

The heads’ pay rise — and inflated salaries — are in stark contrast to the insecurity faced by most lecturers who work on zero-hours contracts, with many not paid a living wage.

Last year, lecturers received a measly pay rise of 1.1 per cent.

Higher education is one of the worst employers in Britain for exploiting staff with insecure, zero-hours contracts — lecturers often don’t know whether they will be employed from one term to the next.

A recent analysis by lecturers’ union UCU found that 59 per cent of academics at the 24 elite Russell Group universities are on insecure contracts, compared with an average 53 per cent across the sector as a whole.

UCU general secretary Sally Hunt said: “Taking inflation-busting pay rises at such a tumultuous time for UK higher education does not show good leadership.

“These institutions have the worst records for putting staff on insecure casual contracts so there is an even greater sense of injustice that there is one rule for those at the top and one for everyone else.

“Now is the time for vice-chancellors to invest in staff but instead they plead poverty on staff pay and refuse to address the gender pay gap and endemic job insecurity within their institutions.”

She called for a register that would list the pay and perks of vice-chancellors.

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